Impact of Built Environment on Mode Choice to Major Destinations in Dhaka

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in investigating the impacts of built environment on mode choice decisions. There is a consensus that built environment factors influence travel behavior, although this influence is far from being homogenous. Compared with the North American and some European countries, there has been comparatively limited research in this field in the context of the Global South, especially South Asia. In this context, this paper aims to explore the extent to which built environment influences mode choice behavior to major destinations in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. “Major destinations” refers to the statistically significant trip-attracting clusters in the city. Dhaka is a city with heterogeneous motorized and non-motorized modes. Investigating mode choice decisions, in such a setting, is vital for the planners and policymakers to realize the goals of sustainable development with measured insights. A multinomial logit model was used to estimate the effects of built environment factors on mode choice to work and non-work trips in Dhaka. The study results showed that inclusion of built environment variables had significantly improved the models. Several built environment variables, including dissimilarity index, distance to the nearest bus stop, road density, and so forth, were found to be strong predictors of mode choice, and their elasticities were higher than the elasticities of several personal and household characteristics. Down that line, the findings provided support in favor of considering land use policies intended to increase accessibility, mixed land use, density, and so forth.